


Leaving Again

by youheldyourbreath



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 16:08:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8167913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youheldyourbreath/pseuds/youheldyourbreath
Summary: He left.  Again.  A willing partner to her heart break both times.  First Silver.  Now this.
Or that fic set after 2x17 where Bruce tells Selina he isn't going back to her with to the city.





	

He left. Again. 

A willing partner to her heartbreak both times. First Silver. Now this.

She should have known. Stupid girl. Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle were too different on every level to ever make whatever this was work. (Friends, she thought. They were friends.) He lived in a mansion while she shacked up in some dingy Church or abandoned apartment, wherever was warm. He wore violence and anger just under the surface and prescribed to pain in a way that made her think that he thought he deserved it while she used violence as a defense to cover her ass. He was soft. She was rough. He was the prince of Gotham. She was a ratty street cat with nothing and nobody to her name.

They couldn’t be friends. He saw that. Hell, she even saw that. It didn’t make his betrayal hurt any less. And to think she had even–

No. She wouldn’t allow herself to consider something so ridiculous, something so base. Selina Kyle didn’t get attached. Friends were for suckers. The only person she could safely take of was number one; yet, somehow Bruce had fell into her life and made her forget that. She would never forget again.

And she didn’t. At least not for a few years.

After Bruce had returned to the loving embrace of his butler, man servant, whatever Alfred was, Selina had avoided him like the plague. For months after they went their separate ways, Bruce had tried to reach her. Ivy had said as much every time they spoke. But Selina was always on the move and had no time to fit Bruce into her very busy social calendar. Scams and robberies required a lot of attention.

So, about thirteen months after their last conversation, Bruce gave up looking for her. Or so Selina assumed. She didn’t see him walking the beat and path of downtown Gotham and Ivy had no more messages from him to her. It looked like the Bruce Wayne part of her life was over.

From a distance, aka magazines and the occasional spot on the news, Selina saw Bruce grow from lanky boy to somewhat brooding, playboy teenager. 

At nineteen she didn’t think she would like or have anything in common with what Bruce had become. He was a prick. Everyone said so. Well, they either said he was a prick or had something to say about his prick. Ladies had loose lips about that part of his new identity. 

But, really, she hardly thought of Bruce these days. She was too busy, you know, surviving the streets. 

Until he hoodwinked her life. 

She was fleeing the scene of a crime that she had not been a part of (her official story, of course) when she ran straight into fucking Bruce Wayne. He caught her by the arms as he stumbled backward, “Woah. You’re running a little fast there, miss.” His smirk lit up his whole face, “Can I–” Bruce’s eyes lit up with recognition. “Selina?”

She forcibly yanked her arm from his grip. Chancing a quick look over her shoulder, she relaxed when she noticed no one was following her. Well done, Cat. A nice clean exit.

“Selina,” Bruce repeated, his voice warm, “Is that you?”

Shouldering her bag, Selina began to walk down the street. She had spent the last few years avoiding him. Today was not going to warm that cold shoulder. 

She heard the click of expensive, hard soled shoes gear up behind her, “Selina, Selina wait!” Cat turned the corner of the block to more shouts, “Cat, I’m talking to you.”

That made her stop. Actually, it made her whirl around and smack him hard with the bag full of stolen goods. A nice, satisfying thwack noise echoed the alleyway they had found themselves in. That was the only sound that came from her, though. She was not inclined to speak to him.

Bruce didn’t flinch. She hated him a little for that. He could at least have the gentleman courtesy to cower under her fierce attack. “Okay,” he reasoned, fixing his shirt, “I deserved that. Feel better?”

“Hardly,” she quipped. His eyes widened in pleasure. He had gotten her to speak, after all. She was going to add that to the list of reasons that Bruce Wayne absolutely sucked. 

“So you are speaking to me?” His voice was gentle, like he was trying not to scare her away. He looked upon her expectantly and she smacked him with the bag for fun. It made that glorious noise, again. She could have carried on forever but he yanked the bag out of her grip and held it over her head. He had grown over the years to around six foot, she guessed, while she had remained tragically small. 

“Give that back to me, Bruce. Or I swear to god I’ll-”

“You’ll what?” He challenged, “Report me? I’m gonna take a guess that whatever is in this bag isn’t exactly something you want Jim Gordon knowing about.” She huffed. He had her there. “I just want to talk. I miss you,” he whispered like it cost him something.

Selina jumped for her bag, “That’s rich coming from you.” She searched for something clever, “Rich boy.”

His eyebrow cocked, “Did you just say that was rich coming from a rich boy? Selina, come on. You can do better than that.” 

“I’m stressed,” she mumbled. “You snuck up on me.”

“You ran into me,” he corrected her, which earned him a hard smack on his chest. He winced. Finally. “Message received.”

“Oh really?” she raised her hand to smack him again but he caught her mid-swing. Selina tried to pull herself free but, instead, he yanked her forward forcing her to collide into his chest. “I loathe you,” she hissed.

He smirked, practiced in the art of making women swoon. Cat could have murdered him. She knew seven ways to kill a man with her thumb and Bruce was still just some punk kid to her regardless of how much he had grown. “You do not,” he grinned. “Admit it, Selina, you miss me.”

“No.” She grit out through clenched teeth, “I don’t. And if you don’t let me go I will break your dick in seven places.”

“You can do that?”

“Let’s find out.”

He hastily let her go. 

She wasted no time collecting her bag full of hard earned crime. Selina turned hard on her heel. Bruce’s voice came before her first step, making her freeze, “Selina, don’t go. Don’t leave again.”

She did not turn around, could not, but she did manage, “I didn’t leave. You did.” And in a blink she was gone.

\--

“Heard Bruce Wayne has been sniffing around for you again, Cat,” Ivy mumbled more to herself than Cat underneath the train tracks. The two girls met every Friday to catch up here since Ivy had gone back to school. Throwing on normal life like the well crafted lie that it was.

Selina threw a french fry at her friend, “You did not.”

“I did, too,” she cooed, curling herself around Cat. Selina had given up long ago trying to keep Ivy at bay. Their friendship was atypical. She knew that. It was best to just let Ivy carry on than try and change her. “He was paying off some of Penguin’s guys. Sounded serious. What did you do?”

“Nothing,” Selina hissed, “I hit him with about two thousand dollars in cash but really nothing serious.”

“Well, it sounded serious.” There was a beat of silence, “Are you involved in all of that drama again? I know what people say about him.”

“None of your business, Ivy,” Cat said a little too sharply. 

More silence enveloped them. It was the thick kind that had far too much history and understanding to be comfortable. “Well,” Ivy clicked tongue, “I have a lot to do today. Same time next week?” 

Cat nodded tersely. 

“Unless you’re with Wayne, again. Give me some warning so I’m prepared.”

Selina flicked a fry at her head.

\--

“What’s your deal, Bruce?” Selina snapped as she slipped into Bruce’s office through the window like she had all those years ago. 

He did not look surprised to see her. In fact, he looked like he had been waiting for her. How many nights had he been sitting in that exact chair waiting for her to drop in since they had last seen each other? Every night? Just tonight? And why was she curious?

You know what they said about curiosity and cats.

Bruce crossed to her without a word until they were chest to chest. Or, at the very least, it was her chest and face to his chest. He looked down at her, intense. Cat wanted avert her eyes but she still felt pulled to him in a way, what had he said once, she couldn’t understand, couldn’t explain. And she knew now it never would change.

Anger flared up in her. “Get out of my face, Bruce.”

“Selina,” he whispered. It was gentle. “I told you. I missed you.”

“You missed me?” 

He only nodded. 

“You’re not allowed,” she said weakly. “It’s been, what, five years? You don’t get to miss me. You didn’t even know me.”

“I did,” he reached down to caress her arm. She shivered. “And you know me still. I know you do.”

She scoffed but did not move away, too drawn to him for her own good, “Bruce, please. The little kid I knew wasn’t some playboy wannabe who spent money on useless parties and shit for fun. We don’t know the first thing about each other. Not anymore.”

His fingers brushed along her neck. His gaze entranced by her skin. “You know me,” he repeated sounding more sure. “That’s not me. You know that. You know me.”

Her body was betraying her. Her eyes fluttered shut. “You probably say that to all the girls.”

“The best liars always tell the truth.” She scoffed but did not pull away. “And that’s the truth. Even when I say it to the other girls its the truth. Just not about them.”

“You can’t,” she was inching closer to him, standing up on her toes. He was meeting her half way. They were a breath apart and Selina’s heart was thudding so loudly she was afraid Alfred would be able to hear them from the other side of the mansion, “use the same line twice, Bruce. You’ve said that before.”

He let out a heavy breath that felt like a smile and grasped the back of her neck, drawing her closer. Their lips were nearly touching. “God, I missed you, Cat.”

That pulled her out of it. That nickname. This room. Bruce. It did not belong to her any more. And she certainly did not belong to him. This was a past life. This was a flirtation with a what could have been. And Selina could have pitched herself off the side of a building for falling so easily back into him. Bruce Wayne and her were from different worlds, after all. She promised herself she wouldn’t forget.

She tried to untangle herself from him but he would not let her go, “Don’t.” His voice was desperate and ragged from the promise of a kiss he hadn’t indulged in. “Don’t go.”

Selina settled back into her feet and their faces grew farther and farther apart. “I wasn’t the one who left, Bruce. That was you.”

“Selina there is so much you don’t understand,” his voice dipped low with his head as he tried to chase her lips. “Don’t pull away. I don’t want to lose you. Not again. Don’t let another five years go by.”

“Let me go, Bruce.”

“Not again.”

“Let me go, Bruce,” she repeated. Her voice softer and less sure. 

“You know I can’t. I shouldn’t have the first time. I sure as hell won’t this time.”

And that was when it all went up in smoke. They crashed together like two waves merging into one deadly force of nature. It was rough, it was painful and it was too much for her to handle. He was too much.

She could feel everything and nothing all at once. She was numb yet hyper aware. His chest was broad, his body was hard in new places where boyhood had made him soft and he was demanding in a way the mild-mannered thirteen year old never would have dared. 

Selina whimpered and fell into his arms. 

And she allowed the night to take them away. Darkness shielded them from the truth that the sun would make them face.

\-- 

The next morning Selina woke to Bruce’s arm pulled tightly around her bare waist. The sunlight highlighted his face that looked so much like she had known him- young and kind. So unlike the man she had met in the darkness last night and yet there were glimpses of this Bruce. 

It made her heart ache.

But she couldn’t face him.

So this time she left him. Not the other way around. 

With a kiss to his temple, she redressed and slipped out of his window. 

Alfred was waiting in the driveway as she snuck down the pathway. He paled at the sight of her and turned his gaze up to Bruce’s window. His mind seemed to connect the dots. “Miss Kyle,” his eyes traveled down to her, “I was not expecting you. Shall I make some breakfast for you and Master Bruce?”

“That, uh,” she fumbled for the words, “won’t be necessary, Alfred.”

“I see,” his tone sobered, “Miss Kyle, may I give you some advice?” Selina did not nod. He continued, “Master Bruce was very wounded the last time you slipped out of his window.”

Selina interrupted, “That was different.”

He spoke over her, “And I would hope that, as his friend, you would spare his heart the break. If you plan to come here again, that is.” Selina blinked. “Miss Kyle, Master Bruce cares for you very deeply. I would not leave again. Should you wish to return.”

Her eyes threatened to water, “Alfred-”

“I can make pancakes,” his voice was hopeful. She knew what he wanted from her. What he hoped she would choose. But how could she expect him to chose Bruce? After all of this time? After everything? Bruce never chose her. Why should she choose him?

Selina wrapped her arms around herself. “Alfred, please.”

“He hated leaving you, Miss Kyle. He missed you every day.”

“Every day,” a second voice joined the conversation. Selina turned to see Bruce, standing in his driveway in a pair of pajama pants that hung off of his hips low. She forced her eyes to look anywhere else. “Come have breakfast with me, Selina.”

And she did. 

That day.

And the next.

And the day after that.


End file.
